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Exit West: A Novel
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Exit West: A Novel
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Exit West: A Novel
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Exit West: A Novel

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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About this audiobook

"It was as if Hamid knew what was going to happen to America and the world, and gave us a road map to our future… At once terrifying and … oddly hopeful." -Ayelet Waldman, The New York Times Book Review

"A breathtaking novel…[that] arrives at an urgent time." -NPR.org

 
"Moving, audacious, and indelibly human." -Entertainment Weekly, "A" rating

As featured on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, in the Skimm, on Fresh Air, and elsewhere, an astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands. 

In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet-sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair, and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors-doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through. . . .

Exit West follows these remarkable characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.

Editor's Note

Fantastic story…

“Exit West” is an excellently written and beautifully observed piece of fiction. A perfect illustration of a novel’s ability to give real-world conflicts an empathy and an urgency that straightforward reporting can struggle to convey.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateMar 7, 2017
ISBN9781524752255
Unavailable
Exit West: A Novel

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Reviews for Exit West

Rating: 3.8367430433715217 out of 5 stars
4/5

1,222 ratings103 reviews

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A thought-provoking read which reminds us that we are all migrants in a sense. You'll finish this one before you know it!
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Saeed and Nadia, two working students, meet and fall in love. Soon their country is embroiled in a civil war. When each day becomes a challenge to survive, the two begin chasing rumors that portals exist within the city that will transport them to other countries. Although the portals are guarded, the two bribe access to one of them. Leaving home and family, they first travel to Mykonos and inhabit a tent city and later to London where they and other refuges become squatters in a vacant luxury residence. Saeed and Nadia, initially madly in love, soon discover flaws in each other.I was drawn to the book because it was considered by the NYT to be one of the top ten books in 2017 and included elements of magical realism, which is a literary technique, which I enjoy. However, I found much of the plot plodding and less engaging than I thought. The author's lack of periods was also disturbing causing me to see how long a sentence he could create. I have never seen so many one sentence paragraphs in one book in my reading life. I guess technically they weren't run-on sentences, but he was on the edge. I'm not sure what the author was trying to achieve with this literary structure, but I found myself winded and breathing heavily at the end of many a lengthy sentence, and not in a good way.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    We follow the conventional Saeed and the rebellious Nadia as they become a couple, experience civil war break out in their country and eventually flee abroad through "magical doors". Their country is never named and is probably intended to function as any country with these experiences, but it is easy to think of Syria. I was sceptical of the magical aspects, but the magical doors seem just to be a metaphor for escaping and getting refugee status in a rich country, which Nadia and Saeed are able to obtain. In London, and later in California, they try to make a new life for themselves, not without challenges. There is no high politics in the book, only the everyday experiences of Nadia and Saeed. This works well and gives a (short) impression of the lives of the thousands of refugees in the Western world today. Recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A young couple meets as their country descends into civil war. Rather than detail their escape and journey, the author focuses on the conditions and they endure and encounter in their new countries. This is quite different from what our media covers.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This is the story of Saeed and Nadia. They live in an unnamed Middle Eastern country that is being torn apart by war. The book is at its best when it is exploring their life there, shining a light on the horrors of war. I found myself rooting for them, hoping they could get out of the country.

    Once they did leave the country, the book lost all its charm for me. With the discovery of magical doors that instantly transport a person to another location, it becomes very easy for people to immigrate from a country they don't like to a new one in the hopes for a better life.

    All I saw at this point, was how the shear overwhelming numbers of immigrants absolutely ruined these countries. First they travel to Greece, finding themselves with thousands of other refugees. Then its on to London, where the hundreds of thousands of refugees are destroying the land, taking over buildings to serve as their homes. What happened to the homes original owners? Do you think an established country can take this kind of strain on their services? Where do they expect to get food from? And for a good portion of the book, there is no plumbing available. Where does all the shit go?

    Then they go to Marin county in California. And along with a huge influx of people, proceed to ruin that place too.

    I get that some people want to immigrate to new countries. And in the war torn city at the beginning of the book, I understand because I would not want to be there either. But I can't see this book as pro immigration. To me it just hilites the horror that uncontrolled immigration would be.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    [Immediate impressions]It is not often that I finish a book and have no idea how to review or even rate it - I have so many conflicting thoughts about this one that I think I should sleep on it and see whether my feelings are any more coherent after that...[On further reflection]I can see why this book has been praised, and why it is on the Booker longlist, but I found it rather disappointing, and I enjoyed The Reluctant Fundamentalist a lot more. I can see the point of Hamid's allegorical treatment of the migration crisis by allowing the existence of doors connecting war zones and other trouble spots with first world locations, and the central love story of Saeed and Nadia was touching, as were his descriptions of the unnamed city they are fleeing, but I just couldn't buy the fantasy element - as in The Underground Railroad there is no attempt to explain how it came about. Hamid seems to have very little interest in the practical - for example where do the migrants get sufficient food from and how does a modern first world economy cope with having its capital swamped by such numbers?I can see that the idea was a bold one, and the book is well written, but for me this is the weakest book I have read so far on this year's list.The Booker jury clearly saw more in this one that I did!
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I always have this feeling of vague guilt when I just can't love a novel that's received such rave reviews - is there something wrong with me, did I really read the same book as so many others? Alas, I just couldn't really like this book. I enjoyed approximately the first half, then the story started to sour for me, likely around the same time I started to realize Saeed and Nadia were not going to make it as a couple. I also would have appreciated more explanation of the "doors" that magically transport people - I realized this is all just a metaphor for immigration, but it would be nice to have a character even verbally speculate about why the doors suddenly appear and how they work in a world otherwise devoid of magic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West packs quite a punch, despite clocking in at less than 250 pages. Main characters Nadia and Saeed fall in love during a period of civil unrest in their country. When the hatred and violence intensifies, the two lovers set out on a harrowing journey west—with a magical twist. The novel’s release early this year could not have come at a more fitting time. The prose is simple, but beautiful, and reads quickly, but don’t be fooled, as the story is difficult to tackle emotionally. While the heavy emphasis on character growth effectively pulls the reader into the story, the fantastical elements of the plot felt somewhat misplaced for a novel addressing such serious topics as war and migration.

    The novel’s marketing places emphasis on the love story, but it’s far more than that. This is a story about humanity. As stated in the narrative: “We are all migrants through time.” Nadia and Saeed must navigate not only the dangerous waters of their former home, but also the hateful reception they receive in the cities they emigrate to. Their method of movement, magical doors that pop up randomly around the world, receives far less attention than their journey, which confuses occasionally, especially since the majority of the plot revolves around their use. Luckily, the novel makes up for this oversight through its strong characters.

    Together, Nadia and Saeed are a formidable pair. Away from each other, Nadia steals the show. Nadia’s rebelliousness and independent streak sets her apart from Saeed’s passive and traditional nature. Her confidence and intelligence sparks their escape. Saeed is most fascinating when interacting with his family, but once the two characters leave the city, his story fizzles out. Nadia and Saeed do evolve quite significantly for such a short novel, and Hamid manages to make their rapid growth convincing, which is impressive.

    The themes peppered throughout the novel add a philosophical element to the plot. I constantly found myself questioning human motives. Are we really so selfish that we would willingly refuse to help fellow humans in mortal danger? It’s an unsettling question, but definitely worthy of reflection in this day and age. But the book addresses far more than whether or not countries should accept refugees. Displacement, self-preservation, and the ills of war are just a few of the many topics it tackles.

    Exit West by Mohsin Hamid is a timely read that addresses many of today’s most pressing political issues. Nadia’s and Saeed’s story will connect you to the plight of the refugee at a far more intimate level than merely reading about it in the news. These are real issues, and real people are dying. Take a few hours and read this book, if only to see the world through their eyes for a moment.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A short novel about two lovers in a war-torn Muslim country, in a world where random doors sometimes open to elsewhere in the world and provide a chance for escape to a new life.This is one that's garnered a lot of praise and critical attention, and I'm pleased to report that it is, in fact, every bit as good as everyone says it is. I'm having trouble finding the right words to describe it, though, because every attempt I come up with ends up sounding like bad ad copy -- "prose at once sweeping and intimate!" -- and none of it captures the feel of the novel at all. So I'll just say that almost every time I had to close the book, I found myself just sitting there for a moment afterwards, saying to myself (sometimes out loud), "Wow, that's good." Meaning both the way it's written and the things that it's saying with that writing.I'm so glad I picked this one up.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The premise for this book is one that interests me – refugees and immigrants in an unsettled world, looking for a better life. And so appropriate to today's greatly disturbing headlines. There is a bit of the fantastical in this book, how refugees get between countries. There is also much that seems realistic, people living on the edge, just making do. And the story follows a young couple, deeply in love, as they traverse their lives.This sounds like a book I would love. But I just couldn't connect with it. The characters didn't manage to worm their ways into my heart, and they were the only consistent characters in the book. To me, the book was interesting but not engaging.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    My second Hamid novel and while I liked this better than "Reluctant Fundamentalist" and I got his points more clearly in this one, I just often wonder why literary fiction is made such a fuss over when there are much better books being written in genre fiction. Maybe I'm just not posh enough or it's the emperor's new clothes?
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The writer's style makes this book a quick and easy read. That's how things seem on the surface. Two young people, Nadia and Saeed, escape their war-torn country through the use of 'doors' that instantaneously transport a person from one country to another. The author does not explain how the doors came into being, just that at some point they began appearing and people began using them. An uncontrollable mass-migration begins as people attempt to escape war, poverty or just want a better life. Through this premise, Hamid explores notions of racism, nationalism, cultural clashes and religion. Most of this is done through relating the experiences of Nadia and Saeed as we see how their relationship alters as they travel through a rapidly changing world. This book is a reminder to keep the doors open.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Nobody would expect magical realism in a novel about refugees. In this award-winning, graceful, fluid story, I was captured immediately by the opening sentence: "In a city swollen by refugees but still mostly at peace, or at least not yet openly at war, a young man met a young woman in a classroom and did not speak to her." Saeed and Nadia begin their relationship in an unnamed city where he cannot be seen entering her apartment unless he is disguised in a burqa, a city where she, most unusually, lives on her own, and he, as expected, would remain with his loving parents until marriage - until the bombs start falling. When the couple learns of a means of escaping the horror of their situation, we follow them to London, to Mykonos, to Marin County - and I believe most readers would follow them anywhere. Each episode is told from both perspectives, and although their differences seem insurmountable, they have only each other amid the seemingly random chances to improve their lives. With long, run-on sentences and very little dialogue, Hamid creates a surprisingly dreamy narrative about the difficult lives of the young resettlers.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I read it in one Sunday in 2 hours and half. It's a magic book. Very actual, talking about war, refugees and immigration but at the same time very imaginative. It's also a very special love story. The one you can't forget.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The news in those days was full of war and migrants and nativists, and it was full of fracturing too, of regions pulling away from nations, and cities pulling away from hinterlands, and it seemed that as everyone was coming together everyone was also moving apart. Without borders nations appeared to be becoming somewhat illusory, and people were questioning what role they had to play.

    Despite all my personal and political uncertainty, I feel this is a necessary book. Exit West feels both inchoate and timeless. It is a Romeo and Juliet of Mosul/Aleppo. This dream world operates just out of focus, these star-crossed lovers finds themselves in a surreal UK where a referendum allows civil war against the migrants. It twists the notions of tribe and time while the surveillance state keeps meticulous record.

    There is a fuzzy counterpoint to the saga. Each episode offers just a whisper of the human. Our devices have become our souls, our oracles. Keep in the shade of the tree of knowledge, remember that the sky has eyes and watch that character count.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Oddly bloodless tale of migrants and their migrations. This never really seemed to get going which may itself have been a metaphor for the transient lives of our protagonists, but it felt kind of weightless which is the exact opposite of how I remember The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Exit West is about Nadia and Saeed, who live in a nameless war torn Muslim country, most likely in the Middle East. Saeed is a devout Muslim, while Nadia is an independent non-believer who is single, yet lives alone in her own apartment, which is almost unheard of. They meet at a night class and soon begin a relationship. They decide to leave their country in search of a better life. They find a magical door and walk through it. On the other side is the Greek island of Mykonos. After living there for a while, they go through another door and end up somewhere else, and so on. Their relationship evolves and eventually devolves throughout their journey. Hamid’s depiction of the disintegration of a relationship was so authentic, I thought it was amazing.I thought using the doors as a device to get Nadia and Saeed from place to place was inventive and creative. This allowed Hamid to focus on their lives as immigrants in the places they traveled to without getting bogged down in all of the red tape that immigrating in real life involves. There’s no way they could have lived in so many places otherwise.My book club read Exit West a few months ago – it was a great selection. It brings up so many issues related to immigration and refugees to talk about. Nadia is an interesting person to discuss as well. Though she is not religious, she wears traditional Muslim dress, even when she and Saeed move to other countries. We talked about why she does this as well as about Nadia and Saeed’s relationship. Recommended.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Travails of a young couple leaving their war-torn country to emigrate to the U.S. aided by a touch of magic.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Loved this book. I'd been avoiding reading it because I thought it might be political, and I am already scarred by our world events, but this was manageable, human, and beautifully written,
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    There are some beautiful turns of phrase and wise insights here, but this one just wasn't for me. I didn't connect to it as a story or find the characters to be anything more than something to post those insights on.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This was an interesting take on the immigrant/migrant experience, delivered as an almost-speculative-fiction account. Sometimes I think I lost the thread (or the bread crumbs scattered, no doubt, to help me find my way back) between the side stories and the main character plot line, but there were definitely moments that enthralled (like the sometime-in-the-future portrait of Marin County, CA). (Brian)
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A charming little novel. I was thrown off a bit by the magical elements, but the prose in this book is something to behold. Almost poetic at times, I made quite a few highlights to save for later.

    There's not much story here, and I'm not sure why he relied on magic to move people around. The story of what it's like to be an immigrant in a foreign land could as easily been achieved with other transportation. But a pleasant read nonetheless.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I'm not usually a fan of magical realism, but I find this romance and examination of the global refugee crisis quite haunting and thought provoking. This could easily have been a Stephen King style epic apocalyptic thriller, but I like the bittersweet optimism Hamid brings to his little fable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Audiobook narrated by the author. From the book jacket: In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet—sensual, fiercely independent Nadia and gentle, restrained Saeed. They embark on a furtive love affair and are soon cloistered in a premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors—doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price. As the violence escalates, Nadia and Saeed decide that they no longer have a choice. Leaving their homeland and their old lives behind, they find a door and step through.My reactions:What an inventive and interesting way of telling a tale that examines issues of immigration, war, and love. Hamid uses a framework of a political unrest, where outsiders are quickly blamed for all that goes wrong. It’s uncomfortably recognizable and plausible, making this reader squirm more than a little during certain scenes. The novel also has a mystical / ethereal quality. The movement from place to place without conventional modes of transportation is one aspect of this. But I think the intensity of the relationship between Nadia and Saeed is what really gives the novel’s settings this “other worldly” sense. The human connection between the central characters is at times palpable. I recognized their dilemma – the inescapable pull of their mutual attraction vs the belief and fielty to religious or social restrictions. And once they’ve taken that step through the first door, who have they but one another? How can they find their way in this strange land? Whom can they trust if not each other? Can they overlook their own differences to join together against the situations they face? Hamid narrates the audiobook himself. He does a marvelous job, really bringing the characters and situations to life.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Hamid's beautifully written novel focuses on universal human needs and migration. He imparts a deep story with perception and understanding yet keeps the text elegantly minimal. By using the ingenious device of "doors" to transport Nadia and Saeed, Hamid is able to go to the heart of the story of two young people, without needing to detail the usual migrant conveyances. My heart goes out to people like Nadia and Saeed who must flee their home in order to survive. Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This is a beautiful and beautifully written book. It is no mean feat to tell a story about love and war in an utterly unsentimental way. this man can write. But I could not find my connection to the story, to these people. Maybe its me. I have a lot going on personally at the moment, and maybe I could not bring enough emotional energy. For whatever reason I got no hint of what Saeed and Nadia felt. Again, this might be reader error.One note: A, lot is made of the book's "magical realism" in these comments, but it is not important at all. Hamid uses one thing as a device to end run the technical complexities of immigration, but otherwise there is no magic at all.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Exit West is not just a successful example of how to use speculative fiction to talk about the present (about the refugee crisis, specifically) but it’s also the story of the journey and the relationship of Saeed and Nadia, a young Muslim couple who escapes from their unnamed country using the “magical” doors that, without any logical explanation, have started appearing in different parts of the world linking countries at random.Fortunately, their long journey through different doors, with stopovers in Mykonos and London and ending in San Francisco, is not just an excuse to show problems refugees and countries taking them in must face, although this is an essential, well-nuanced and interesting part of the plot; we’ll also be witnesses of how Saeed and Nadia will deeply change along their journey and how their bittersweet love story evolves. And all this in just around 200 pages. Not bad at all.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Saeed and Nadia live in an unnamed city under siege by militant fundamentalists. He is shy, mildly devout, a star-gazer. He still lives with his parents. She is forthright, wilful, ambitious, practical. She lives alone in her own apartment and although she wears the trappings of devoutness (for protection), she does not pray. Their paths cross, there is a spark, they are young, and love flourishes. But their city is no safe place to live and the danger is getting worse. If only there were a way out. There might be. Doors are being opened. Or rather “doors,” since these are no ordinary openings from one room to the next. Rumour has it that a “door” could take you almost anywhere. And almost anywhere other than this city is where Saeed and Nadia decide they want to be.With a beautiful, lyrical, almost magical, touch, Mohsin Hamid describes the lives of Saeed and Nadia and the progress of their love across space and time. It is a world filled with new possibilities, but also great risk. And not everyone or every love survives. When they finally decide to escape through one of the doors that have opened up in their city, Saeed’s grieving father asks only that Nadia see his son to safety, a promise she is determined to keep. Hamid nicely interweaves brief sketches of other travellers through these mysterious portals, stories of hope, mostly, and new love.This is a gentle read that will sweep you along through what at times is a horrific world, though recognizably similar to our own. You’ll find yourself wishing their were doors out there available for everyone. But where that leaves you at the end is not entirely a happy place.Highly recommended.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is a very timely book, putting a personal spin on the refugee crises happening in many places of the world. The two main characters are real, contemporary, complex individuals striving to live a "normal" life in a world where communities, families, and individual principles are torn apart by war. But, it's not a book about war. One of those books you want to share with everyone you know.

    Hamid has a beautiful style of writing, telling us important parts of the story through observations rather than explicit words, changing writing styles to indicate pace and fear, and applying an interesting "magical" quality to doors - as I take it - to focus on the life of refugees trying to build/create a normal life, rather than the tragic/difficult experience of making a fleeing journey to a new place. It's clear that going through these "doors" is hard, they always arrive bruised, exhausted, and disoriented, but the focus is how they try to live in these new places with different aspects of surviving and adapting.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Hamid's fascinating,brief novel depicts the journey of Saeed and Nadia who first meet while attending a class in a city being torn apart by war. Though not named, the city is based on experiences in Pakistan. Their love affair seems like a respite from the bomb blasts and the stray bullets. As the danger increases, Nadia moves in with Saeed and his father until even that becomes too dangerous. They decide to take a door, a passage to another place where they will become refugees but perhaps can create a better life. In this way the author doesn't tell the story of the journey, the plight of the refugees, he prefers to concentrate on the life they have once they have arrived. In this case it is first Mykonos, then London. There they struggle to keep their own identity as minority refugees compared with the majority from Nigeria. There is a dark London and then the natives. As the natives first start to wage war to rid themselves of this refugee problem, they later realize the problem is too big and negotiations begin. Finally the couple move to Marin, near San Francisco. Where they begin separate work and become attracted to other people. They grow apart once existence seems assured. Though the story is fanciful in the creation of these passages to another place, the experiences of the two main characters are realistic and important to read about. Hamid is an important and interesting writer whose perspective continue to educate.